Activists: Right fest still relevant after three decades

Posted: Sunday, May 04, 2008

Does a guy in a tie-dye suit make the same statement he did in 1978?

The first Athens Human Rights Festival was organized by University of Georgia students as the Students Rights Festival to commemorate students who were killed in May 1970 during protests at Kent State University in Ohio and at Jackson State College in Mississippi.

Thirty years later, the festival's mission to promote human rights and provide a venue for activists is just as relevant and needed, festival-goers said Saturday afternoon.

"It's an interesting community-builder," said Rachael Lanney, a former UGA student who lives in Chicago. "I think it's important for people to have a physical space to get together and discuss the issues they're interested in. The Internet can't totally fill the need for communication between these groups or provide this kind of interaction."

Local activists from groups ranging from the Athens Justice Coalition, to Citizen-Advocacy of Athens-Clarke County, to the Mental Health Association of Northeast Georgia, manned tables lining College Square, while others worked the crowd to share a message.

"People need to still be aware that there is still injustice in Georgia and all over the world," said Elizabeth Adler, a massage therapist and yoga instructor who has attended several Human Rights Festivals over the years. "This gives people who care about human rights a place to promote their causes - because where else is there for them to do that?"

While many who attend the festival each year already support causes championed there, they still learn something new, said Curtis Jones, who recently moved to Athens with his band, Son1 & The Insurgents.

"You have young people here, college students and even high school students, who are becoming aware of issues they may not have known about," Jones said.

"Like this, I had never heard about this before," he added, holding up a flier he picked up about Troy Davis, a Savannah man who is scheduled to be executed for the murder of a police officer in 1989.

Seven of the witnesses who originally testified against Davis have since changed their stories of what happened during the shooting and the Georgia Supreme Court recently ruled not to retry the case.

Questions about how Georgia or the United States uses capital punishment are serious issues, said Jeremy Harbin, a junior at the University of Georgia, studying psychology.

"I kind of think that (the festival) would be more effective if there was less tie-dye," Harbin said. "I mean, I agree with them. I support these causes completely, but it's kind of hard to take seriously. I mean did you see that guy wearing a tie-dye suit?"